Life in the mountains, travel, retirement, music, journalism, family, politics, parks, sailing and a few brain drippings.

Monday, December 24, 2012

One of those dreaded Christmas letters

Merry Christmas from our house to your house**I will eventually mail a few Christmas cards. but since it is Christmas Eve and I have not started, here's a report on our year.

It has been quite a year. I won’t try to cover it all in one letter. You’ll have to come visit us to get a fuller version of the story.

We started 2012 in our cabin in Camp Connell where we have been living for the past six years or so. While we were staying in a rental unit below the snow, our Realtor and friend called to say she had an unusual house for us to look at down the mountain in Murphys, Ca. It turned out to be two 80-year-old houses, on one piece of property, both needing work. So, of course, we bought them.

We moved into our new/old home at 340 Bret Harte Drive in late March as soon as we had three feet of water pumped out of the basement, and then started to work. The months since then have been near-endless chores, repairs, renovations and contractors.

Fortunately, the larger house was in reasonable shape, though stripped clean, and Pat and I started making the changes we wanted or needed. The biggest initial challenge was furnishing a large house after living in a small cabin. The first of many miracles happened when friends, both old and new, discovered they had furniture they no longer needed, or did not have room for. We can never repay the kindnesses we were granted, but we will surely spend years paying it forward.

The smaller house next door was a disaster, but after seven months of hard work and buckets of money our son Zack and Granddaughter Katie (and Rusty the dog) moved in, and are now our next door neighbors. And our new/old home is very near daughter Ruth, her husband Brian, and fast-growing grandchildren Delaney and Connor.

Both houses still need some work, but thanks to many kind friends and workers we are in, and happy.

We are near our church, good friends, poker buddies and best bakery in California.

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About Me

I live in California's Sierra Nevada south of Tahoe and north of Yosemite. After living above the snow line for five years we recently moved to the wine and Gold Rush town of Murphys. A ski resort is uphill, our sailboat 100 miles downhill.
I retired in 2004 to travel, read, write, learn more music, avoid haircuts and wearing ties, and write family history.
I was a journalist for over 40 years in five states.
I'm a native of Atlanta, and my children and grandchildren are nearby. I was raised in Mobile and miss gumbo.
I am a politically independent guitar-picking Christian anti-war Army veteran tree-hugger.